RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

Slobodan Novaković

TELEVISION AS A DOCUMENT оr: Television as a Non-Metaphoric Medium

The appearance of television began a new epoch in the field of human communications. This epoch represents the end of the evolution from »literary« to »non-literary« subject-matter. The three basic characteristics of this evolution are: a) the age of literature in which the basic means of communication is the spoken language b) the age of film in which communication is effected by means of silent and talking pictures; each of these pictures has its own structural characteristics c) the age of television whose main characteristic is the television electronic picture, If the age of the printed word is based on given language and literary contents of a metaphoric character then the age of the television electronic picture is based on given audio-visual and non-literary contents of an anti-metaphoric character. In other words, if a myth is the subject of literature then only everyday life can be the subject of television. From the historical point of view, the ега of silent and talking fflm pictures lies between these two expressive ages. The expressive character of this ега is in some written or non-written literary pre-text which is used as a motivation for making certain fflm scenes consisting of sound and visual elements. The editing of these elements gives a complex, integral and authentic fflm form, a form which is made in ап absolutely new material (actually, some traditional metaphoric contents are interpreted in this way by means of a new expressive technique). Therefore, from a dialectical point of view, a fflm only represents an initial expressive form which has been estabiished between the literary and television forms of expression, in the interval between the long period of the printed word which is still the main form of communication and the relatively young period of the television electroruc picture which uses electronic and iflm material as well. In this way, the fflm appeared in the interval between Шегагу, eliptical metaphorical speech (which includes a superstructure and allows interpretation) and direct television broadcasting of some authentic and unique events taken from everyday life which allow neither interpretation nor a superstructure. They burn out in the countinuity of spaceand time. Although fflm language cannot be imagined without editing it does not have such ап important role where television language is concerned.

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